Crazy in Chicago (28 page)

“Allie . . .” Erik spoke quietly, but the word vibrated with warning.

Allie pushed Cody away. She wiped her face with her arm, then lifted her head and looked at him. She swallowed. “Nothing,” she began, then burst into tears.

Alarm streaked Cody's face, his own purpose set aside in the face of Allie's distress. “What's wrong?”

Allie stumbled over to Erik, sobbing. She clutched him, her head on his chest. Slowly his hands came around her.

“My baby,” she cried into his chest, her words muffled. “My baby. They took my baby!”

 

Chapter 16

 

Thunderstruck, Cody and Roberta stared at the couple clinging desperately to each other. Allie's sobs had broken through Erik's granite facade. He clutched her, awkwardly patting her back and murmuring nonsensical words of comfort.

After a few minutes, Allie's sobs subsided into sniffles and hiccups. Finally she sniffed and wiped her face, then extricated herself from Erik's arms.

“Who took your baby?” Cody asked gently, not wishing to send her into a storm of tears.

At the same instant Roberta asked, “Have you called the police?”

Allie opened her mouth but sobs overtook her before she could answer. She clutched her middle and cried harder than ever. Erik put his arms around her again.

“Do you want me to call the police?”

This time Cody directed the question at Erik. Surely, if their daughter had been taken by someone, they'd called the police? Why wasn't the place swarming with officers?

Erik shook his head. For the first time since their arrival, he looked directly at Cody. Their gazes collided, and Cody jerked with the impact.

Clear as his own voice, he heard the voice he'd heard before—Erik's voice he knew now with absolute certainty—inside his head. Only this time it wasn't warning. It was beseeching.

“No. Don't call the police. It wouldn't do any good. I can't explain why. It may still be all right.”

Cody started to respond, then faltered. The familiar nausea struck him, harder than ever before. He staggered, the sickness sucking the breath from him, knocking his knees out from under him.

He reached out to Roberta for support, then blinked. She leaned against one of the two couches, holding her head. What's wrong with her, he thought woozily.

Unsupported, he fell to his knees, swallowing hard to keep back the nausea. Despite the whirling of the room, he looked over to where Erik still clung to Allie.

“What's going—”

A flash of blue light, far stronger than anything he'd ever seen or recalled, blinded him. Nearby, Roberta gasped, then screamed.

Cody groped about on the floor. He squinted against the eerie blue light that filled his vision and blotted out everything else. Fear grasped him, the same fear that had terrified him on the night he had disappeared, that continued to fill him with dread of some unknown horror in his visions and nightmares.

Second by second the light grew stronger, harsher, and with it his sense of dread, of impending doom. He gasped for each breath, no longer knowing or caring if anyone else was in the room with him. Only aware of himself and the light.

Suddenly, from the heart of the blinding light, Cody heard a sound. He listened. The whimper came again, followed by a sniffle, then a hiccup. Finally the wail of a baby pierced the silence.

“Star!”
 

The joy in Allie's voice was unmistakable.

Cody opened his eyes. He blinked. A remnant of blue light lingered in the room but faded fast into the corners. Roberta slowly pulled herself up beside the couch where she had fallen.

Cody's eyes focused on the couch. The couch where now lay Erik and Allie's baby, crying and waving her arms and legs.

With a shriek of joy, Allie ran to the couch and snatched the baby to her breast. Allie looked up at Erik, tears streaming down her face. “It's her, it's her, oh it's her. She's come back!”

Erik's controlled expression wobbled. His harsh features softened and radiated extreme relief. He joined Allie and fiercely hugged her and the baby to him.

Cody shook his head, trying to dispel the dizziness and disorientation still afflicting him. Someone grasped his elbow and he started, then realized it was Roberta. He sat back on his heels and looked at her, crouching on the floor beside him. Her face registered the same confusion and wooziness he was experiencing.

“What's going on?” she whispered.

“I don't know,” he managed. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “My stomach's still churning, but it's better than it was a minute ago.”

A wail cut through the room. They both looked over to where Allie and Erik still clung together in private relief, the baby between them.

Gently Allie extricated herself from Erik and sat down on the couch. She whisked a receiving blanket from the arm and, within a minute, was discreetly nursing Star. Tiny sucking and gurgling noises could be heard as the apparently ravenous child drank the mother's milk she had refused for so long.

Allie gazed at her daughter. She held the child's hand and examined each tiny finger, one by one.

Suddenly Allie looked up at Cody and Roberta. She bit her bottom lip, then looked at Erik as if she were searching for help.

For a moment, their eyes locked. Erik's cold gray eyes flared like molten metal, then cooled. With a slow, deliberate motion, he nodded his head.

Allie looked down at her nursing child again. “I'm really sorry you had to go through so much, Cody. I really am,” she said in a voice so quiet Cody had to strain to hear. “But I can explain. And I will explain.”
 

Cody's chest tightened with uneasiness. He glanced at Roberta then rose unsteadily to his feet. Taking her hand he lead her to the couch opposite the one where Allie nursed the baby and sat down.

He straightened his shoulders and fought to clear his head and compose himself. Finally he looked straight at Allie. “I'm ready,” he said. “Go on.”

* * *

Allie squirmed about on the couch for a few moments, rearranging herself and the baby. She looked at Erik, one last time, then directed her gaze at Cody, her green eyes glowing with a strange combination of reluctance and sorrow.

Finally she shook her head and sighed. “One thing you can be sure of, Cody. You're definitely not going crazy. However strange what I'm going to tell you may sound, that's the one thing that's absolutely certain.”

She took a deep breath. “I'm sorry you saw what happened now too. We—I—didn't want anyone to know. But perhaps it's just as well. If you hadn't seen what just happened, neither of you would ever believe what I'm about to tell you.” She smiled at Cody. “Especially you.”

Beside him, Cody felt Roberta tense. He took her hand between his own and squeezed it. He looked into her blue eyes, full of support and love, and knew he could face—and live with—whatever strange thing Allie might tell him about his disappearance, and the odd goings-on of the past few weeks.

“Just a moment.” Allie changed the baby to the other breast, then apologized. “Please don't mind. After what happened, I don't want to let her out of my sight.”

Erik stood between the two couches, arms crossed, his face settled into grim lines, all evidence of his earlier emotion and affection gone.

Once the baby was settled, Allie's face creased in worry. “I don't know where to start . . .”

Her voice trailed off. She grimaced. “I guess I'd better just say it. Erik is an alien.”

Silence fell over the room. Finally Cody cleared his throat. “You mean, he's an illegal immigrant?”

Allie shut her eyes. “I wish that's what I meant. But no. I mean he's an alien, as in an extraterrestrial, from another planet.”

Cody's heart seemed to come to a shrieking stop. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Finally Erik broke the shocked silence.

“Actually, that's not true. I am part-alien and part-Earthling. I am from the planet Zura, in the galaxy of Oridian, which is obscured from your view by what you call the Milky Way. On my planet, civilization is quite different from here, and much more technologically advanced. But the only thing you need to know at this time is that destiny is the ruling factor on Zura. At age twelve, each boy has his destiny foretold by a seer. His life work becomes seeking and achieving his destiny.”

In the silence that followed and the numbness that had seized him, Cody could hear the ticking of the clock and the baby's faint sucking noises. He felt Roberta's nails dig into his palms and glanced at her. Her face shone with excitement and she leaned eagerly forward to hear more. Cody was too numb to do anything but listen.

Allie resumed the story. “And Erik's destiny was to marry me. He came to Earth to claim me, much as his grandmother had been taken from Earth sixty years earlier when Zurans perfected intergalactic travel. But Erik was worried. His grandmother had been traumatized by her kidnap to an alien planet. She had suffered a mental breakdown. Erik didn't want to wreak the same havoc on me. So he decided to woo me and convince me to accompany him to Zura as his wife.”

Allie looked at her husband and smiled fondly. His expression seemed to gentle in response; Even in his numb state, Cody didn't doubt the true affection between them.

“But Erik's research wasn't quite up-to-date. That's where you come in, Cody. Erik believed we were still engaged. He didn't know we'd broken up a week earlier. So he had you, er, removed to a Zuran spaceship orbiting the Earth hidden behind the moon. No harm was meant to you. It was strictly a case of removing the competition.”

Something pierced Cody's numbness, a kernel of feeling that quickly grew from amazement to the first sparks of anger. He dropped Roberta's hand and jerked forward, frowning. “What do you mean, no harm was meant?”

Allie shook her head. “I'm so sorry Cody. I didn't know. I really didn't know. I was upset when you disappeared. I didn't know what had happened to you. But eventually I fell in love with Erik. Then I found your car keys in his desk drawer. I was horrified. I thought he'd killed you.”

Cody shook his head, unable to take it all in. Nothing Allie said made any sense and yet . . . yet it struck a chord deep inside.

The baby choked and Allie lifted her to her shoulder and patted the infant's back. “I didn't believe Erik when he told me he was an alien either. I thought he was delusional, maybe a paranoid schizophrenic who'd hurt you and now was going to do something terrible to me. But then . . .” She looked at Erik. “Can you still do it?”

Mystified, Cody and Roberta watched Erik. He raised his right hand over his head. As they watched, a blue marking materialized on the palm of his hand. Like a river of blue, with numerous tributaries, it grew in strength and intensity, until it reflected off everyone and everything, filling even the far corners of the room.

Twinges of nausea assaulted Cody, but then passed as he grew accustomed to the glow. He stared at Erik, not understanding, not wanting to understand. His mouth felt dry, his skin clammy.

Finally Erik lowered his hand. The light faded and he looked at Cody, his eyes full of a terrible strangeness. The strangeness, far more than glowing blue light, convinced Cody that the terrible words Erik and Allie had uttered could be true.

Erik nodded in agreement with Cody's unspoken thoughts. “The blue marking is a birthmark and a form of identification,” he stated. “A sign that I belong—or belonged—to the Zuran elite. It's faded greatly during the last year.”

Allie took up the story. “Erik's birthmark terrified me even more. Eventually he convinced me that I had no choice but to accompany him to Zura. That he could compel me to go, whether I wanted to or not. When I agreed to go, he promised to return you to Earth, unharmed.

Uncontrolled anger surged through Cody again. He turned to Erik. “And if she hadn't agreed, what would you have done with me?”

Allie jumped in before Erik could respond. “Please, Cody. You don't understand. Zurans aren't like us. They don't have any . . . any appreciation of the emotional effect of their actions. Erik never meant to harm you. He just never considered how the abduction would hurt you. Humans weren't important to him then. But that's all changed now, hasn't it Erik?”

Erik nodded soberly. “Allie is right. Zurans despise emotion of any kind. They think humans are weak. I still don't understand why they continue to hold a fascination for a race they scorn.”

He paused. “As a part-Earthling, I was always suspect on Zura. I tried to suppress everything human about myself. It wasn't until I came here, and met Allie, that I finally came to understand—and to value—humanity. I learned that every life, however humble, was of value.”

He paused once more and held Cody's gaze without flinching, meeting Cody's anger and accepting it. “I am sorry now, for what was done to you. If I could change anything, I would. But that is beyond my power.”